Diet

[mac mick]

I have recently been diagonosed with type 2 I am on metformin by 2 500mg I am very confused about what i should and shouldnt be eating I have not been referred to a dietician I have looked on line but the most i have come across are recipes. I really want to know what are the foods i can eat and what i can eat only occasionally and also what i shouldnt eat I do know i have to lose weight despite any health problems i now have any advice would be greatly appreciated Thank You

 

[sugarless sue]

Have a read of this Mac and see if it is of any help to you. Keep reading round the forum and you will find a lot of advice on different diets and foods.

Here is the advice we usually give to newly diagnosed type 2 diabetics.This forum doesn't always follow the recommended dietary advice, you have to work out what works for you as we are all different .

It's not just 'sugars' you need to avoid, diabetes is an inability to process glucose properly. Carbohydrate converts, in the body, to glucose. So it makes sense to reduce the amount of carbohydrate that you eat which includes sugars.

The main carbs to avoid or reduce are the complex or starchy carbohydrates such a bread, potatoes, pasta and rice also any flour based products. The starchy carbs all convert 100% to glucose in the body and raise the blood sugar levels significantly.

The way to find out how different foods affect you is to do regular daily testing and keep a food diary for a couple of weeks. If you test just before eating then two hours after eating you will see the effect of certain foods on your blood glucose levels.

Buy yourself a carb counter book (you can get these on-line) and you will be able to work out how much carbs you are eating, when you test, the reading two hours after should be roughly the same as the before eating reading, if it is then that meal was fine, if it isn’t then you need to check what you have eaten and think about reducing the portion size of carbs.

When you are buying products check the total carbohydrate content, this includes the sugar content. Do not just go by the amount of sugar on the packaging as this is misleading to a diabetic.

As for a tester, try asking the nurse/doctor and explain that you want to be proactive in managing your own diabetes and therefore need to test so that you can see just how foods affect your blood sugar levels. Hopefully this will work ! Sometimes they are not keen to give Type 2’s the strips on prescription, (in the UK) but you can but try !!

As a Type 2 the latest 2010 NICE guidelines for Bg levels are as follows:
Fasting (waking).......between 4 - 7 mmol/l.
2 hrs after meals......no more than 8.5 mmol/l.
If you are able to keep the post meal numbers lower, so much the better.

It also helps if you can do 30 minutes moderate exercise a day. It doesn't have to be strenuous.

 

[mac mick]

Thanks Sugerless
For all your help and advice i will keep looking around the forum as you suggest This is all new to me and any advice is greatly appreciated Thank You for your quick reply Regards Mac

 

[mickmac]

Thank you ukhomoeopath for your very helpfull advice on my diet So sorry i havent been able to reply to you sooner i have been unable to log in with mix up over my log in details Thank you once again new user name is now mickmac

 

[hanadr]

I would disagree on the fats
I eat a fairly high fat diet, knowing that fat is the only food group which doesn't affect blood glucose.
Some fat is essential.
Latest research shows that it doesn't matter what kind of fat you eat. None has ever been proven to do you any harm.
Hana

 

[CarbsRok]

y

 

[clearviews]

you might like to see this video explaining diabetes from the Diabetes UK website
It mentions about the fat preventing the cells getting the glucose and hereby the blood glucose rises.

From the same Diabetes UK I see they recommend T2s should make sure that their intake of carbohydrates "should make up half of what you eat and drink". I don't find that works for my BG control. Nor has increasing the amount of fats since I began LC made my BGLs rise, the exact opposite has happened. They also say that "glucose from carbohydrate are essential to the body, especially the brain".

So if this all make sense then I guess the video about fat preventing the cells from getting glucose and hereby the blood glucose rises would have to be true?

If that is the case then I may just as well give up the new training roles I have taken on right now as much of my brain's glucose these last 16 months seems to be coming from somewhere else and my brain is possibly about to turn to............?